woMen's March: The Decline and Fall of Feminism
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woMen's March: The Decline and Fall of Feminism
If men are not centered in your feminism, it is actual feminism
I don’t call myself a feminist because I was born with a penis. Feminism, by definition, is supposed to center women and girls, i.e. non-penis people. Although I do read feminist writers and support feminists everywhere, this does not make me a feminist. At best, it makes me a supporter of feminism, a friend of feminist ideas, and a friend of feminists. I am not a feminist because I do respect feminism, and whenever feminism centers a penis-person, it stops being feminism, transforming instantly into patriarchy.
Now, I am also not the right person to decide “who the real feminists are,” but as a penis-person, I do know what a men’s rights movement looks like. It looks like that, up there: the new logo for the “Women’s March,” which famously burst onto the political scene in January 2017, responsive to the election of Donald Trump.
It is meant to be more “inclusive” than the old logo, with its diverse female silhouettes. A more masculine profile has been added, and of course it comes first and closest in line. Of course. And just to be clear that it’s a man, the Women’s March Twitter account recited the magic words:
The tweet was instantly ratioed, meaning that negative responses far outpaced supportive ones, so of course the organization doubled-down on their “solidarity” with men by tweeting a childish meme. Of course, because we all live in a 4chan incel fantasyworld now and any man can become a woman through mere self-declaration.
The reply threads are worth looking through for the sheer absurdities and obscene accusations leveled against the “terfs.” Did you know that recognizing a male profile is literal genicide? Just acknowledging that the silhouette has been perfectly positioned to eliminate the Adam’s apple is actual eugenics! And so on. I recommend clicking the tweets to take a look.
Some of us could see this coming. It started at the very beginning when a woman involved in the nascent movement knit a pink “pussy hat” to keep her ears warm during the very first march event in Washington, DC. Other women thought her idea was clever, so the pink hats are ubiquitous in photos of the event. Clearly, this was a crime which could not go unpunished.
Accusations of transphobia — and of course, racism — came quickly, and garnered national attention. “The Women’s March seemed to be a party that only cisgender white women were invited to,” children whined, and so the Asian-American inventor ot the evil pussy hats was forced to defend herself in the national press.
“I think ‘pussy’ refers to the female anatomical part, but it’s also a word that’s used to shame people who are feminine … whether they are men, women [or] genderqueer. And I think what it comes down to is that femininity is really disrespected in our society,” Suh explained.
… The hat is a metaphor, not just for women who are cisgender (a person who identifies with their birth sex), but any person or group who can relate to feeling marginalized, according to the knitter.
“But I don’t want to shy away from the fact that it does refer to the female reproductive organ,” Suh said. “That’s a huge issue right now. How can women’s rights supporters of any gender… protect these literal reproductive parts from unfair legislation?”
In a classic feminist turn, Suh was trying to “reclaim” a word that men abuse. Yet her explanation left all the usual suspects unsatisfied, for it was for too balanced and reasonable. What made this nontroversy all the more amazing was that Cherno Biko, a “trans woman of color” (read: black man), was a speaker at the DC march.
In fact, thanks to the universal absence of vetting in progressive political spaces, the Women’s March had managed to center a rapist in their activism even though Mr. Biko had made public confession to the crime months before the march. Nor was he the least little bit apologetic for, as he put it, raping a woman in order to create “non-binary black babies,” which actually sounds like some weird eugenicist shit:
In his rape confession, Mr Biko made space to shame activists who refuse to advocate for black men who rape black women or children, denouncing it as “respectability politics.” Mr Biko named Keyonna Blakeney and Alton Sterling, and argued that these and other individuals accused or convicted of sex crimes are nonetheless entitled to activists’ support.
Biko was quietly and conveniently forgotten. What a contrast to the purging of pussy hats, which have disappeared. Even more glaring is the haste and vigor with which the Women’s March responded two years later to accusations of anti-Semitism. There was a complete overhaul of their leadership. Again, the problem had been visible to anyone who had cared to look, but abolishing pussy hats took priority over distancing themselves from Louis Farrakhan.
The decline and fall of the woMen’s March is a case study in how big problems go unaddressed while narrow interests are allowed to define everyone. Whereas the first event in 2017 saw an estimated 470,000 women in Washington, DC alone, and as many as seven million participating worldwide, that participation had declined by 90% or more in 2019, the last year before the pandemic. According to their own estimates, just 5,000 people turned out for the Women’s March in 2021.
By the time they are done purifying themselves, only the men will be left.